Theme Brothers Hosiery (Los Angeles)

1923 – fate not established

This is a Los Angeles company, entered here because its Fort Wayne connection is genuine and documented: it was created by Fort Wayne's Theodore F. Thieme as the West Coast expansion of the Fort Wayne Thieme Brothers Company (entry 34), begun with the purchase of Los Angeles land in 1921 while Thieme Brothers was still a Fort Wayne firm, got off the ground with a party of former Wayne Knitting Mills department heads and foremen, and was managed by Fort Wayne's John A. Thieme. It is entered as a Fort Wayne firm's own branch, not as a Los Angeles business-history entry.

Founded: 1923, Los Angeles. Theodore Thieme initiated the project in 1921 with the purchase of land in Los Angeles and completed the project in 1923, shortly after his departure from Wayne Knitting Mills, naming the new branch Theme Brothers Hosiery — the "i" dropped from Thieme, on the scholarly biography's account, "to distinguish the mill from the Fort Wayne original while still associating it with his family name" (Immigrant Entrepreneurship biography, German Historical Institute, drawing on Thieme's own published accounts). No California incorporation record was retrieved, so 1923 rests on the accounts cited.

Founders: Theodore F. Thieme (founder; president and general manager of the reorganised independent Thieme Brothers from 1923) and John A. Thieme (manager of the Los Angeles branch) — (biography).

What it did: Manufactured hosiery in Los Angeles as the West Coast mill of the Thieme brothers' silk-hosiery business (entry 34).

Course: Only the opening and the 1925 hand-over are documented in sources in hand: land bought 1921; mill completed 1923 and got off the ground under John with the Fort Wayne staff party; in 1925 Theodore "took advantage of a favorable opportunity" and sold the Fort Wayne branch of Thieme Brothers, "officially withdrew from all business activities," and entrusted the future of the Theme Bros. Company to his brother John (biography). No later course — growth, the Depression and war years, or a closing — was found's searching; the biography ends its Theme account at the 1925 entrustment.

Fate: No source in hand records when or how Theme Brothers Hosiery ended, was sold, or was renamed after 1925. Los Angeles city-directory and California trade-press work is the route to settle it.

Sources:

1. Immigrant Entrepreneurship (German Historical Institute), biography of Theodore Frederick Thieme — Thieme Brothers reorganisation 1923; Los Angeles land purchase 1921; project completed 1923 and named Theme Brothers Hosiery; staffing from Wayne Knitting; John's management; 1925 withdrawal and entrustment to John — https://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entries/theodore-frederick-thieme/
2. Entry 34's sources for the parent Fort Wayne company (Thieme Brothers Hosiery Company, 1909).